


stay in my arms (but only emptiness remained)

by clandescene (leevee)



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Levanter MV, Loneliness, M/M, Multi, Parallel Universes, Queerplatonic Relationships, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27130388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leevee/pseuds/clandescene
Summary: Seungmin laughed loudly while Jisung gave a small squeeze over their entwined hands. “Let’s ask Hyunjin and Felix for cuddles.”“The four of us, tonight?” Seungmin smiled over the prospect. Nothing made him happier than cuddling with his three beloveds. “Yeah, let’s cuddle.”Everyone that he loved was here. No one was left behind.So why did his heart yearn earlier?###or, Felix was secretly hiding in a glass room in the middle of a starry universe
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han & Hwang Hyunjin & Kim Seungmin & Lee Felix, Han Jisung | Han/Hwang Hyunjin/Kim Seungmin/Lee Felix
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43
Collections: STRAY KIDS MV FICFEST





	stay in my arms (but only emptiness remained)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is heavily based on Levanter. Also, if you once watched Steins;Gate:
> 
>   * universes are the equivalent of attractor fields
>   * timelines are the equivalent of world lines
> 


The lonely elevator stood in the middle of the crossroad, guarded by rusty railings. It was as if the elevator were ripped out of the building it used to belong in and thrown in the middle of nowhere, sticking out, never belonging to the new environment.

Seungmin blinked once, twice. A weird, heavy feeling was creeping into his chest, but what was it?

Chan, the strongest among the three of them, put extra force to rip the doors open. Instead of the street, they saw the dusty interior of a real elevator.

“Why is there something behind the door?” Jisung said in confusion. “The elevator looks very one-dimensional!”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Chan replied.

Seungmin took a step into the elevator and was greeted by a whirlwind of scrap papers and dried leaves. A neon lamp, the only source of light in the room, almost fell out of the ceiling. There were split cables dangling all over the room, sparkling flames screaming  _ danger _ all over the place. The dried leaves on the metal flooring indicated that the elevator hadn't been used for a long time. Maybe years? Decades?

Despite the atmosphere the old elevator emitted, the heavy emotion that Seungmin experienced became stronger. He recognized it: this was a yearning.

But yearning for what?

Jisung, who had just finished messing with the control panel, joined Seungmin to stare at their surroundings. “The buttons aren’t working, either,” he said. “Maybe this isn’t the elevator we’re looking for?”

“It’s not,” Seungmin nodded. “But there were no trees around this place, how can the floor be covered in dried leaves?”

“And the wind didn’t come from outside, too,” Chan said. “Somehow, there’s wind trapped in this elevator.”

The three boys stood there for a while, the wind slowly escaping through the door that Chan had opened wide. Finally, the neon lamp gave out, the scraps set themselves on the ground, and the wind stopped blowing.

It’s time to leave, isn’t it?

Seungmin held Jisung’s hand tight. “I feel like we’re supposed to use this elevator to reach someone.”

“I feel it, too,” the boy in the striped sweater agreed. “As if someone is calling for us, but the elevator can’t be used.”

“Could it be... someone we know?”

Jisung squinted his eyes. “But everyone we know is with us!” He glanced back to see Chan who waited for them outside the elevator. “Okay, right now there’s only three of us since the others are checking other elevators, but you get my point.”

“That’s why it feels too weird,” Seungmin said. “I know everyone is safe, we’re just separated for a while. But my heart keeps saying that I should reach someone through this elevator.”

“Through a broken elevator that goes nowhere.”

“Thank you for the information.”

Another silence fell, then a small, familiar rumble.

“Sorry, it was my stomach!” Chan shouted from outside, while the rest giggled.

“Let’s go back,” Jisung said while tugging Seungmin’s long sleeve. “Chan _ -hyung _ is hungry.”

“Yes,  _ hyung _ is hungry!” Chan shouted again, his back still facing the metal door. “Sentimental time is over, guys!”

Seungmin laughed loudly while Jisung gave a small squeeze over their entwined hands. “Let’s ask Hyunjin and Felix for cuddles.”

“The four of us, tonight?” Seungmin smiled over the prospect. Nothing made him happier than cuddling with his three beloveds. “Yeah, let’s cuddle.”

Everyone that he loved was here. No one was left behind.

So why did his heart yearn earlier?

_ (as he walked further away from the elevator, the yearning dissipated along with the autumn wind.) _

* * *

“There was an eagle on top of our elevator!” Hyunjin shouted in excitement, although they were supposed to be asleep at that time. “Minho _ -hyung _ almost got attacked!”

His three cuddle buddies silenced him. “Ssh!”

Jisung, whose back was facing Hyunjin, elbowed him. “This is why you’re at the edge of the bed tonight. You’re too loud!”

“No, don’t scoot any closer, I’m gonna fall!”

“Please scoot farther, Jisung,” Seungmin said calmly while staring at Hyunjin, “The bed will be spacier if Hyunjin sleeps on the floor.”

“You’re the one who asked me for cuddles, why are you pushing me away?!”

“Seungmin, you need to move, too!” Felix grunted. “My back’s already pressed on the wall, you’re squeezing me!”

“Hyunjin, see, you’re flattening Felix, too!”

“But your back is the one that pressed Felix to the wall!” Hyunjin wailed. “Besides, whose idea was it to move the bed to the corner?”

Three people shouted in harmony, “Jisung!”

“Well sorry, I’m not used to a walled bedroom!” Jisung whined. “I thought it was a good idea after the eight of us piled ourselves together every night on top of a trampoline.”

“We should move the bed a little bit to the center,” Seungmin added, letting Felix wrap over his back warmly. “And maybe we can scrap for another small bed, so we can have a bigger space to sleep?”

“This is already the biggest bed we can find,” Hyunjin replied while trying to claim a little bit of space for himself, trapping Jisung with his arms that reached Seungmin’s fingers. “And we still can’t fit...”

“It’s okay, guys,” Felix said. “Tomorrow night, Chan _ -hyung _ said we’ll ride the elevator, remember? To the new world.”

“To the new world,” Seungmin repeated, Felix’s deep voice resounded in his mind. “Where we’ll find a bigger bed to sleep together.”

“Maybe we can move to a beach,” Jisung said. “Sleeping on the sand, so we don’t need beds. We’ll have the whole beach as our bed!”

“But the books said that sand is grainy and annoying, though?”

“Hyunjin, do you really believe in what those books said? They’re from District 9, those books might have lied to us.”

“True that.”

“Come on, let’s sleep,” Seungmin yawned. “We’ll have a long day ahead. And a beach to find.”

But could anyone really be asleep when the day they had waited for so long finally came?

Felix smiled, slipping his hands into the tangled hands that were wrapped around each other. He was lucky, so beyond lucky to be loved by these three precious people. “I love you,” he whispered.

“Love you too,” Hyunjin replied softly.

“Love you more,” Seungmin said with a smile, although Felix couldn’t see it (he just knew).

“Love you most,” Jisung answered the last.

Content with the replies, Felix closed his eyes to sleep,

* * *

and woke up inside a room with glass walls.

* * *

Ever since Felix found his way to this glass room in the middle of a starry universe, he never slept. Whenever his body fell asleep, his soul would be wide awake inside the glass room, where he could review everything that happened in his timeline and compare it with the previous ones.

“So Chan _ -hyung  _ didn’t burn the elevator, huh?” he muttered while reviewing today’s event. The metallic sphere with a red core spun on top of his hand—a sort of mechanism that allowed him to gain control of his timeline whenever his soul went back into this room. “That’s good, everything’s going according to plan...”

Truth be told, Felix already knew that tomorrow, they would fail simply because Chan didn’t burn the elevator. It seems simple, but that old elevator that Chan, Seungmin, and Jisung visited earlier would be used by the City Jungle higher-ups to catch the eight of them and drag them back to District 9.

But tomorrow, his beloveds would be very stubborn. And smart. And they would irritate Felix for hiding him from their captors very, very well so that he would end up being the only survivor. And when he finally found the broken elevator to reach his friends, he would end up in this glass room again. Separated forever. Unless he reset the timeline.

Sometimes he wished Hyunjin, Jisung, and Seungmin lied when they said they loved him. Because then he would suffer with them, instead of being trapped with the mechanism to redo the world.

“How many times has it been?” Felix asked himself. “Fifty times? Sixty? I lost count already...”

Here’s the problem with having the right to control the timeline he currently lived in—no matter how many times Felix reset the timeline, he would always end up meeting Chan and the rest of the team. He would always fall in love with Jisung, Seungmin, and Hyunjin during their short stay before arriving at the City Jungle. He would always be protected when the end arrived.

He would always be left behind, in the middle of nowhere, with only a metallic sphere and the power of love. It sounds really cheesy, but that was the truth: had he not loved those three people, he would have given up since long ago.

The sphere spun quickly, and the glass wall in front of Felix showed footage of the four of them, cuddling together for the last time in this particular timeline, taken from a bird-eye angle.

“One more time,” he said with a sad smile. “Just one more time, and I will proceed with the end.”

* * *

The raid started, and one by one, they got caught.

From the bushes, Hyunjin spotted the broken elevator that looked even more broken than yesterday. Their captors had zero mercy on everything, not even elevators.

“Use it, now!” Hyunjin pushed Felix’s back. “Go somewhere else while I distract the guards!”

Felix tilted his head to his back, trying to make as little sound as possible. “But what about you?”

The black-haired boy only grimaced. “I’ll be fine!”

“They’ll catch you too! You know you can’t outrun them!”

“Lix?” Hyunjin blinked and immediately cupped his face. “Oh, Felix, please don’t cry... I’ll be fine, I promise!”

He had been through this conversation multiple times. Sometimes with Seungmin, sometimes with Jisung, too. And yet, as another tear fell onto his cheeks, the watcher realized that he would never get over the painful feeling of his last farewell in each timeline. “Jin... don’t say you’ll be fine when you won’t be...”

If there was anything that always remained the same, it would be Chan getting captured first. His self-sacrificing ass was unbeatable. Through many timelines, Felix had acknowledged that nobody could defeat him for the award of the most selfless person in their friendship circle.

“I’m sorry, Lix, I’m so sorry,” Hyunjin finally cried along with him. “I can’t—I’m not strong enough to be the lone survivor, and I know I’m being super selfish here, but if we go back to District 9 knowing at least you’re safe, we will be okay.”

Felix nuzzled into Hyunjin’s palm on his cheek. “I don’t want to be alone... don’t wanna leave you guys...”

“You have to, Lix, you have to. I know you can be strong enough to overcome everything, just... let me have this, okay? Let me know that at least, you’re safe. And we’ll try our best to get out, okay?” Hyunjin sniffled and tried to pull a smile, but it looked like a grimace. “We’ll get out of the system and find you again. We’ll meet again. We’ll be together again. We’ll find that beach and cuddle in peace, okay?”

“Hyunjin...”

“Be safe, Lix. Know that I love you, and Seungmin loves you more, and maybe Jisung loves you the most—although I’m convinced that our feelings are equal. We love you. And we’ll get back to you.”

They never made any promise. Felix understood why.

Besides, he was the only one who could ride the elevator. Once, he tried letting Jisung inside first, but somehow the tranquilizer darts never got through and the elevator wouldn’t let him in. Felix ended up switching places with Jisung, and the machine suddenly closed the doors right when the first dart hit Jisung’s shoulder.

“I love you too. All of you. Please tell them that.”

He wiped the tears and removed Hyunjin’s hands from his cheeks gently. The taller boy smiled widely before running towards the road.

“Heeyy, I’m here!”

Felix got up and ran into the elevator, pressing the buttons he had known all too well and closed his eyes. He knew what sight the universe gave him while the doors were closing at an extremely slow pace. He didn’t need to see it again—if he saw nothing, that means Hyunjin was okay inside his assumption, right?

“Hey there, universe,” he whispered, “it’s me, ya boi.”

And when he opened his eyes, the sphere was already spinning on his hand.

* * *

“It’s hard, isn’t it?”

Felix looked up to see Jeongin who broke the silence. The sun had already set and everyone was asleep. Hyunjin and Seungmin are currently squishing Jisung in the middle of their cuddle night, maybe because the cheeky boy cried very hard during their fight earlier. Felix entangled himself from the cuddle pile when everyone was already asleep and climbed back into the car, where he ended up talking to Jeongin.

“What do you mean by hard?”

Jeongin threw a sad smile. “The fight earlier. Hyunjin didn’t look like himself when he started it.”

Felix nodded. “Never thought the side effect from District 9’s medication would be that strong.”

“Never thought?” The younger scrunched his forehead. “Felix _ -hyung,  _ you know that I know about the parallel universes too, right?”

The freckled boy blinked once, twice. “Oh yeah, I always forget. Sorry, Jeongin,” he apologized while smiling sheepishly.

The black-haired boy threw his gaze to his front again. “You’re so strong, Felix _ -hyung. _ You keep your poker face on, even though you’ve been through this fight so many times.”

“Aren’t you the best among us, though? You knew more universes than me. A universe where we go to a normal school, or becoming chefs, or leading a rebellion in District 9... while I’m stuck here, traveling to the past and trying to change some parts in hopes of a better ending.”

“Knowledge is an advantage, but it can also serve as a curse.” Jeongin took a deep breath. “Sometimes, I wish I knew nothing about my other self in other universes. Or what happened to the eight of us.”

The silence engulfed them for a short while before Felix decided to break it again. “What do you think about this one? Is it a good universe?”

“There are better ones,” Jeongin admitted. “But there are also worse outcomes. You’ve done your best to lead us to the best timeline in this universe,  _ hyung.” _

Felix rubbed both of his palms to warm himself. “I can only hope that I did the right thing this time. I’ll let them burn the elevator.”

“The elevator to the glass room?”

He nodded.

“I’ve never been there,” Jeongin said. “I know about the parallel universes; doesn’t mean I can move through them like you, moving through timelines. I don’t know what will happen if the elevator gets destroyed.”

The youngest wrapped Felix’s tiny hands.  _ “Hyung, _ I hope you’ll be okay in the end.”

There’s another unsaid wish, and Felix prayed for his hidden, selfish wish to happen as he drifted off to sleep and let his consciousness travel to the glass room.

“After all I have done, I beg you, please, don’t leave me behind in that lonely cage...”

* * *

Maybe Jeongin was right when he said that this was not the worst universe.

Seungmin and Jisung ran towards him, tackled him in a hug. “We burned the elevator!” they screamed. “Changbin _ -hyung _ was correct, that elevator was the wrong one.”

Felix grinned, while Hyunjin walked towards them. “Hey, you guys did a group hug without me!”

Jisung opened his left arm, along with Seungmin’s right. “Then come here, Jin!”

“Thank you, Ji!” Hyunjin joined the hug and immediately said, “There’s an eagle on top of my elevator. I think that’s the correct one! We’ll finally be free from this world!”

“Yay!”

“And you know what’s more surprising?” Hyunjin’s eyes lit up. “Minho _ -hyung _ cooks dinner.”

“No way!” Jisung shouted. “We’re having a feast tonight! Let’s go!” He pulled the rest towards the older boys who were busy preparing for their last night in this hell. “I’m hungry!”

Seungmin chuckled while getting dragged by his beloved. “Ji, I thought Chan _ -hyung _ was the one who’s hungry?”

“His hunger has infected me!”

“Minho _ -hyung _ hadn’t cooked anything, they’ve just started!” Hyunjin yelled. “Stop dragging us while hugging like this, Lix almost tripped!”

“Wait, really?” Jisung halted his movement. “Lix, I’m terribly sorry, please forgive this sinful man who knows nothing, please, please, pretty please...”

“I’m okay!” Felix replied and gave a peace sign. “I didn’t trip, Jin was joking!”

The four of them burst into laughter again, so loud that even Jeongin couldn’t silence them.

Felix thought to himself, this universe was beautiful in its own way.

* * *

The elevator turned into a glass gate in the middle of a meteor shower, and everyone was stunned by the scenery.

“This is so unreal,” Hyunjin said.

It felt like a dream; the starry sky, the empty field without any signs of danger or CCTVs, the metallic building standing tall, the comet flashing and reappearing above their head.

Seungmin kept looking up. “So this is what a meteor shower looks like? It’s so beautiful.”

Felix had seen prettier meteor showers, even supernovas from his glass room, but nothing came close to this. Is it because this time, he was holding hands with his beloveds? Maybe, the view looked so beautiful because he was not the sole survivor this time.

Chan took the first step to open the gate, and daylight burst from the universe behind the door. He looked around before stepping back.

“Guys, it’s empty over there. I think it’s safe?”

Minho and Changbin crossed over first. They seemed to be alright, so Jisung nudged his beloveds to follow their older brothers. “Let’s see what would happen to us over there!”

Once again, Felix took the last step among the four of them. Jeongin hesitated a bit, but he still managed to throw a soft smile and mouthed a ‘thank you’. 

Holding tight to Seungmin and Hyunjin’s hands, he crossed the gate,

* * *

and teleported into the glass room once more.

But this time, his heart seemed to say something else. Instead of urging him to reset the timeline, he felt like letting go of the metallic sphere from his hands and walking away from the transparent pedestal, which he did.

“My job here is done, right?”

Below, he could see Jeongin looking up to the sky with a sad smile—is that his way of saying goodbye? Chan patted his back, though, and he hesitantly walked through the gate, leaving Chan himself to close the door once he crossed.

The closed gate dissipated slowly into golden ashes, and Felix felt so empty.

“I won’t be left alone, right?” he asked the star systems in front of his eyes.

Hyunjin once said that he’s afraid to become the lone survivor, that’s why he made sure Felix entered the elevator. Does that mean, among the four of them, he was the bravest of all? Or is it just fate cherry-picking and relying on him to find the happy ending?

“Don’t you think this is too cruel?” he asked once more. “I’ve tried so hard to fix everything so they would be happy, but in the end, I was... alone...”

A meteor shower passed before his eyes.

“If this is your idea of comfort, please stop.” Felix curled into a ball. “It only makes me sick—ouch!”

The metallic sphere got hotter on his hand, it almost burned his palm. The boy got startled and dropped the sphere to the glass floor. “What—why—”

Memories rushing into his mind, and everything finally made sense.

“So you’re saying that... you’re not the one who forced me to be here, I was the one who begged to receive this ability then forgot about it? No matter what the consequences would be?” He chuckled in despair. “Ha, no wonder my ending became this pathetic. I was pleading for a miracle...”

Felix took the sphere back into his small hands, whose red core became dimmer than usual, and made sure the screen showed a bird-eye view of his latest timeline. Half of the glass gate had been dissolved and the rate was getting slower, as if it was made of radioactive material. After this, the gate would never be usable anymore, but it would never be gone, either. He lifted up his fingers and counted, “Hyunjin. Jisung. Seungmin.”

The boy curled up on his pedestal once more and muttered, “I love you most.”

* * *

_ “Please, let me save them!” _

An eternity had seemed to pass by when a boy inside a glass wall heard something.

_ “Seungmin, Jisung, Hyunjin... I’ll do anything, just let me save them!” _

Why did it sound so familiar? The hoarse voice, the desperation in that plea, Felix felt like he knew it far too well.

_ “I don’t care what will happen to me! As long as they find their peace, I can do anything for them!” _

Oh.

Of course he knew those words, that exact sound. This was exactly what he said when he first got shoved into that blasted elevator, wasn’t it?

The watcher checked the footage in front of him: the glass gate towards another universe was already gone. On his left, another footage was being played without him asking for it—this must be the universe giving him a sign. He stood up from his pedestal after a long time and walked forward to watch the footage a bit closer.

There was a boy who looked exactly like him, with flowing silver hair, a shimmering black robe, and small gemstones under his eyes. That must be himself from another universe, right? Would he replace his position here?

Felix leaned his forehead to the glass wall and closed his eyes, drawing a wide satisfactory smile. “Good luck, Lix,” he muttered.

The last dust particle from the gate took flight to the sky, and nothingness lulled the boy’s consciousness into an eternal slumber.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to the mods of SKZ MV Fest who helped me a lot, especially when I first thought my email was lost 😂😂😂 despite publishing some works as _clandescene_ prior to this, MV Fest is actually the first fic I worked on with this new pseuds!
> 
> Biggest uwu to _mem_ , my amazing beta! This is the first time my fic got beta-ed and I'm just... heart eyes 🥰🥰🥰 you're the best! Also thanks to [find a beta](https://twitter.com/beta_find), your service is INCREDIBLE. 25/10 would recommend
> 
> Please leave some constructive criticism and I'll see you again!


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